Sirens

It’s been all but quiet in my head since I’ve finally learned the truth about the Great Wave that happened fifty years ago. My parents refused to spare any details with me, for I was not born then and they thought I shouldn’t bother myself with such long forgotten knowledge. However, my grandma, after a few weeks of persuasion from my part, finally caved in. I was now listening closely to the story, how it all begun and how it all ended. It made my skin crawl just thinking about the people that died in pain and away from their families over the span of five years. “You see Jorah, it started as a simple virus, people were taking ill one after the other, but we never lost hope that we would see the end of it”, my grandmother said, looking thoughtful into the distance. She then proceeded to elaborate what could only seem like a government plot ripped out of the pages of the books she always told me she read as a child. Schemes over schemes, nation after nation losing their people over this Great Wave as we call it now. When I asked about its name, the only answer was “It begun like a wave that takes form safely at a great distance from the shore and ended up crashing violently onto the beaches and washing away thousands and thousands of people who believed were safe from its reach”. No one could pin point the exact location of its birth and nobody really knew when it was done craving for human flesh. There are still a few among us who live in fear, almost expecting for the next tide to come ashore and wipe up entire nations all over again – we call them Sirens, for they are more comfortable in the water then on land, but I’ve never seen them. As for the rest of us, life has slowly gained its normalcy, or so I’ve been told.

I’ve only known the insides of my house and the beautiful green sanctuary in my back yard. But that’s all right, mom says anyway that we are the only people alive – she doesn’t know that I’ve heard her talk about the Sirens and truth be told, it’s better this way, I don’t think she would enjoy my inquisitive moods. I started to imagine how the others would look if I ever encountered them, how and where our conversation and interaction would take place. I was imagining all of this while I was looking up to the ski from my perfect spot – the little patch of green grass, surrounded by different kinds of trees. It was my favorite place from the whole wide world, time and nature itself always seemed to have a different flow back there. When I was there, everything was quiet, the sun was peaking through the canopy of trees, as I was laying on my back.

One day, as I was getting up, I saw a little trinket at the base of a tree, which was odd to be honest, given the fact that I know my back yard better then I know myself. Cautiously, I made my way to the little object and picked it up. After a close examination, I came to the conclusion that the object held no other meaning then the obvious one – it was an ordinary heart shaped locket. Baffled by my disappointment, I made my way back into the house, still holding the locket in my hands.

“How did the locket find its way into capsule 36?” asked the man in the white coat. “If the boy discovers the truth, there will be no conclusive results for this experiment”. The man, despite the discovery that the boy had made, was not angry or irritated, but simply composed, like he had done this his entire life. “We enter tonight and retrieve the object”. He gave this order to no one in particular, as if the locket was not the key to their undoing.

For some reason, I didn’t want my mother to see the locket, so I pocket it away and went straight to my room. “Jorah, come down!”. I was startled by my mother’s voice, thinking that somehow, she knew I was hiding something from her, and accidentally dropped the locked onto the floor. “In a minute!”, I said as I fumbled to pick up the little heart and hide it somewhere in my room. Looking closer at the cold metal, to make sure that it didn’t break, I saw a tiny line, that looked almost like handwriting, scratched onto one side of it. I haven’t tried to read it, for I was too concentrated on hiding it from prying eyes. After I put it away, I went downstairs to my mother. Later that night, as I was trying to find a comfortable position to sleep in, I found the locket under my pillow, where I put it earlier that day. I pulled it out and instantly my breath caught in my throat when I saw what was written there - “Property of SIRENS”.